Belying the old adage that says quitters never win and winners never quit, Australia is coming off quite the weekend in which incumbent anti-game South Australian Attorney General Michael Atkinson won re-election then resigned his front bench seat.

Pre-election, Atkinson claimed that no one cared about the lack of an R18+ rating in Australia other than gamers and also predicted that the Gamer4Croydon party would “struggle” to receive one percent of the votes.

Well, in Croydon, according to ABC.net election data, Gamers4Croydon’s candidate against Atkinson, Kat Nicholson, managed to achieve 3.7 percent of the vote, assisting in eating away at 14.4 percent of Atkinson’s vote from the previous election. Despite that erosion, Atkinson still won rather easily however, garnering 52.7 percent of the vote. Nicholson came in fifth out of seven candidates in the Croydon suburb, besting candidates from the Family First Party and Australian Democratic Party.

In a post on the G4C website entitled "Here's Your 1%," President Chris Prior expressed pride at what the upstart party accomplished:

With so very little to work with, we have contributed to two other incumbents losing their seats, and all of our lower house candidates polled higher than the 1% we apparently wouldn't get. In the upper house, we outpolled the majority of groups, including a significant number with more resources, more experience, and much more time.

Atkinson then stunned the country, electing to vacate his role as Attorney General for South Australia, citing a desire to spend more time with his family as one factor contributing to his decision. Atkinson will remain in Parliament through 2014, but will be replaced as AG, which GameSpot reports could take a week or two. A spokesperson from Atkinson’s office told GameSpot that the caucus would decide the new minister, and added that “Atkinson has made this decision by himself,” and that he “wants to spend more time with his family as he has been here for 21 years and he wants to give younger backbenchers a shot in cabinet.”

Australian Game Developers Association President Tom Crago, speaking to Computer World, hoped Atkinson’s resignation would improve the chance of an R18+ rating category for games being added, saying, “With Atkinson out of the fray, we have a better chance [of passing the reform].”

Gamers4Croydon’s Chris Prior also appears to have come up short in his bid for a seat on South Australia’s Legislative Council. The top 11 vote-getting candidates win a spot on the Council and Prior was not among them. He garnered 0.83 percent of the vote (with just about 73.0 percent of the total vote counted).

While gamers and the game industry are celebrating Atkinson’s resignation, keep in mind that the addition of an R18+ videogame rating category requires amendments to three federal classifications and requires unanimous consent among all state, territory and federal Attorney Generals, so a single dissenting opinion could still quash the movement.

That being said, let’s enjoy the moment at least. As an aside, while it’s unscientific at best, a poll on the Adelaide Now website asks if readers were happy about Atkinson stepping down. “Yes” was the overwhelming answer, with 96.43 percent of the vote.

The others originally expressed support but some got more careful in their speech, most likely not to cause public conflict and solving the argument behind doors. Chances are that if the next guy isn't a problem, they'll start to push things along as good as they can without losing too many votes.

Atkinson went very quiet after the debacle over attempting to curtail net anon speech(although he was really just the public lightening rod, most of the parliament on both sides supported that) and calling out that guy as a Liberal plant when he was an actual resident.

His seat is one of the safest Labor seats in South Australia (the election before hand he won with ~75% of the vote) and he managed to piss away 15 odd %.

So basically he has been told to warm the seats but resign from effecting policy. He'll get 4 more years of pay and keep his parliamentry pension etc, but he's up on blocks as far as having any power goes. I'm not sure how his electorate will really take that, but it's a positive for the rest of the country...

Gamers 4 Croyden should be rightly proud even if they don't manage to gain a seat on the legislative council (still waiting on that outcome last time I checked).

Finally, some good news from Australia. Maybe, like someone said, his tantrums made him a risk for the office, and even if he won, he would be very dangerous to keep in his seat, so he was forced to quit.

He was a very poor excuse of a politician. He really represented the worst part of a person being in a elected charge. He was dishonest and paranoid. He threatened people just for being critiziced on the internet. He was pro-censorship and disregarded any kind of argument or evidence. He mocked of his opposition and called them criminals and perverts without any respect.

In many ways, he was worst than Jack Thompson. He had actual power, but he just wasted on his own ego. Too sad when this happens. Any town or city or country don´t deserve a clown as an elective representative.

Just an FYI, since this isn't the original article that's been reposted here, I'll give you the cliffs notes.

Atkinson was told GTFO, behind closed doors. The way his step-down message has been phrased to make it look like this is voulentary and that it's a personal choice is the standard for politicians when their party has told them, "You've frakked up, resign or you're fired". Front-benchers dont fall to the back bench unless they've been fired by the premier (or prime minister in federal)

So, when he claimed that his constituants didn't care about an R18+ rating, thereby implying overall that his constituants didn't care about the overall issue of Freedom of Expression, which IS an important issue concerning Human Rights, how does he feel that almost half of the voters didn't vote for him?

Also, interesting point coming out of the various news articles how he wants to spend more time with his family because he's put more attention into his job in the past, does that mean he is addicted to politics and needs to go for treatment for politics addiciton?

Well this was unexpected. It feels like someone winning a contest then giving a trophy to the loser saying "I don't really want it I just wanted to prove I'm better at this than you."

Goodbye Atkinson I guess.

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Debates are like merry go rounds. Two people take their positions then they go through the same points over and over and over again. Then when it's over they have the same positions they started in.

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Debates are like merry go rounds.
Two people take their positions then they go through the same points over and over and over again. Then when it's over they have the same positions they started in.

While I agree with your sentiment, I dont' think that analogy really works. Non-smokers have very real health concerns for their own safety, so of course they'd have an interest in cigarette laws. Non-gamers' interest in gaming is likely not a matter that could be life and death.

There was this thing in an Avengers bootcamp, where a guy was being tough to Tony Stark. Next thing you know, he's resigning to spend more time with his family. In comes the reporter's remark "but sir, you don't have a family."

Basically, this situation just shouts "bullshit, you got forced out" to me.

Well, at least he's seemingly out of the debate. His childish and paranoid tantrums were getting old. Now, if only the pro-games people would grow up (WTF zombie walk) and then a real rating system may actually see the light of day.

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ZippyDSMlee: .....win8 hates any left over hidden install partitions from other version of windows....only waste 5 hours finding that out...its ahrder than you think keeping up with 4 or 5 HDDS......03/03/2015 - 4:44am

Matthew Wilson: I am going to pax east, any games you guys want me to check out?03/02/2015 - 11:23pm

ZippyDSMlee: No one remembers the days of Cinemagic and Cynergy eh? :P, meh even MGS is getting to film like....03/02/2015 - 8:44pm

MechaTama31: I was about to get all defensive about liking Metal Gear Solid, but then I saw that he was talking about "cinematic" as a euphemism for "crappy framerate".03/02/2015 - 8:29pm

prh99: Just replace cinematic with the appropriate synonym for poo and you'll have gist of any press release.03/02/2015 - 5:34pm

Monte: Though from a business side, i would agree with the article. While it would be smarter for developers to slow down, you can't expect EA, Activision or ubisoft to do something like that. Nintnedo's gotta get the third party back.02/28/2015 - 4:36pm

Monte: Though it does also help that nintendo's more colorful style is a lot less reliant on graphics than more realistic games. Wind Waker is over 10 years old and still looks good for its age.02/28/2015 - 4:33pm

Monte: With the Wii, nintnedo had the right idea. Hold back on shiny graphics and focus on the gameplay experience. Unfortunatly everyone else keeps pushing for newer graphics and it matters less and less each generation. I can barely notice the difference02/28/2015 - 4:29pm

Monte: ON third party developers; i kinda think they should slow down to nintendo's pace. They bemoan the rising costs of AAA gaming, but then constantly push for the best graphics which is makes up a lot of those costs. Be easier to afford if they held back02/28/2015 - 4:27pm

Matthew Wilson: http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2015/02/28/the-world-is-nintendos-if-only-theyd-take-it/ I think this is a interesting op-ed, but yeah it kind of is stating the obvious.02/28/2015 - 2:52pm